Why did the Athenian expedition to Sicily fail?
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It was both. One problem was with Athenian commanders and the way they were treated by the Athens. One of the commanders (Alcibiades) was sent while facing serious criminal charges, with the process postponed until after his return. Upon his arrival to the theater, he was suddenly recalled to face the charges. So he had no choice but to switch to the Spartan side. Another commander (Nicias) was his bitter political opponent. Then the remaining commanders could not decide for some time about the plan of the operation.
When the operation failed, the natural thing was to withdraw, to save the army. But again the commander, Nicias was afraid of how Athens will react on this. (And he had good reasons to afraid. Athens had a long record of executing or exiling even victorious commanders!) To this a bad sign was added (a solar eclipse). As a result the retreat was postponed, which led to the complete annihilation of the army.
Another factor was the Spartan help which was promptly sent to Syracuse.
In fact the whole idea of this expedition was ill-conceived. They counted on their Sicilian allies to pay to the troops. Only when the expedition arrived, it was discovered that the allies have no sufficient funds for this. So it seems clear that it is Athens government which has to be blamed for this disaster. The timing of the eclipse shows that gods were also on Syracusian side.
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Source: stackoverflow.com
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